Saint Paul wrote that we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers,

This seems to be one way of thinking about the way values seem to get embedded. Whenever I assess a man for Anger Management there will be generations of men behind him sharing their values and instilling in him a view of how men behave and conduct themselves. Usually these values include emotional and physical abuse as a way of enforcing a power structure. These men then grow up with a view of themselves as needing to be ” hard”. Hard on their children and hard on their wives. Sometimes the control is physical, sometimes emotional. But always about control.

Similarly when I assess a woman who has come for help with anxiety or depression, there will be mothers and grandmothers who instil a view of a woman’s place and function. This will be that they are there primarily to serve their husband or children. ( To serve. Not to complement or share, but to serve. As one patient put it, her task was to help her husband become the man she saw that he could be!)

Saint Paul understood his battle to be with the spiritual forces that he thought lay behind everyday life and society. He saw these values as demonic and anti Life..

Looking at the Brexit decision, I’m almost inclined to follow him.

In broad terms, he had a point. Violence, rage, crippling anxiety and depression are anti Life. Which might be one way of characterising the demonic. That which is anti Life. Which begs the question of “Why?” Why does a man come to believe that violence is the only way to live? Where does he decide that hitting his wife and children are good ways to live?

Where does a woman decide that her task is to sacrifice all for her husband/ father/ family?

It seems that there is an alternative value system that ensnares us in its thinking. I recognise it in myself. My wife works full time in a job that she enjoys and which is demanding. I’m retired and work fewer hours. But if we run out of something at home, my all too frequent reaction is ” Why hasn’t Jenny done the shopping?” (I do try to remind myself that I am quite capable of going shopping.) And I consider myself to be a modern man. Some values run deep!

So how to understand the principalities and powers at work here? Much of the difficulty seems to stem from a sense of insecurity. I’ve yet to meet a man for whom Anger was a problem who was able to value himself very much. In all the men I’ve worked with, there was an underlying sense of low self worth. ” I’m just thick. I’m only fit to be a navvy” is how several of my men have put it. And even on the building sites, there’s no respite. Any comment on their work, justified or otherwise, is experienced as criticism. Any criticism wipes out their entire being, confirming their view that they are indeed ” only fit to be a fucking navvy.” Take this away and it’s hardly surprising that violence erupts in some form. If my self esteem is so fragile, then anyone or anything that threatens that will be met with an extreme response.

With depressed and anxious women self esteem also seems to be involved but in more subtle ways. We know how misogynistic our society can be. A woman’s place is still in the home. No matter how many important decisions she makes at work, a woman can still be undone if she forgets the milk! ( I wonder who does the shopping for Theresa May? I remember David Cameron shopping in Aylesbury. A large, black SUV parked illegally at the top of our street. No parking ticket was issued! His bodyguards got out first, followed by Cameron as he did a bit of shopping in Aylesbury. An everyday trip to the shops such as we all do.)

Women still see themselves as being subservient to men. The patient who told me she saw her task as helping her husband to be the man she thought he could be, was expressing a maxim from her mother and grandmother- which is usually as far back as records go. In this case all three generations had seen their marriages fail as the men they had chosen turned out to have agendas that didn’t match those of their wives. In each case the present generation managed to instil the message ” Do as I say and ignore what you see.” with no good outcomes.

We seem to be back to principalities and powers. Of powerful unseen forces shaping successive generations and influencing behaviour and values. Perhaps one way of characterising the work of the therapist is that we speak Truth to Power.

I tweeted recently that counselling often feels like playing chess. With multiple boards in multiple dimensions. With multiple players. As a counsellor I spend a lot of time with my patients trying to work out which piece belongs to which game. (In which dimension!) Chaos theory tells us that a butterfly stamping its foot in Brazil can cause an earthquake in Cumbria.

Chess is often used as a metaphor for politics. If I make this move now, what will be the long term consequences for my game? If I sacrifice my Knight here, will that eventually allow me a strategic victory in 50 moves time. We call this board sight. A good player reaches a level where they can read a board intuitively. Or at least a certain number of moves ahead. It’s a skill we all develop in our career, if we stay long enough. A good teacher develops a sense of what might help a child. A good manager learns to read their team. A nurse develops a sixth sense about their patient.

What is seen so often in my counselling room is a patient who has no broad sight. They move a piece almost randomly, with little understanding of how this will affect the rest of their game. A Bishop is given up here, a Knight there. This pattern gets repeated game after game. And they are unable to work out why this is happening.

A chess game is just a chess game. We can always decide to take up Scrabble or Table Tennis. It doesn’t matter much. Real life is more serious. When I assess a new patient their stories have a sadly familiar ring to them. The woman who has anxiety problems. Her mother was the same. As was her Grandmother. The man who is violent and has problems controlling his anger. His father was angry and violent. As was his Grandfather. People often come to me when they see the pattern repeating in their children. It is not uncommon for a husband or wife to be the driving force in someone seeking counselling. Their behaviour in the family is causing problems and difficulties.

Any single chess game can be complicated enough. As well as challenging, demanding and enjoyable if one knows what is happening. Or at least knows how to think about thinking about. When it is real life and the individual has no idea about the game they are involved in, this terror is compounded when it seems that another game somewhere else is affecting the current one. My grandfather’s game from eighty years ago can still affect the moves I make now, particularly if he is still playing it out through and in me. Messages about how women should behave, what a man should or should not be able to do, these are alive today, impacting on my life today. Suddenly I find myself moving my pawn to that square for no apparent reason. Regardless of the risk to that piece.In my counselling I work with people who have some awareness of their lack of board sight. What frightens me are the politicians who wish to use their power to play out a game they don’t know. We don’t know the impact of Brexit. I don’t know the impact of the recent USA elections. The increased popularity of the far Right feels like a chess game played with real people. Real people are and will be hurt.